As of today 100 coal plants have been defeated or abandoned since the beginning of the coal rush, including Enviropower, Indeck and Rentech coal plants in Illinois. In their place, a smart mix of clean energy solutions like energy efficiency, wind, solar and geothermal has stepped up to meet America’s energy needs.
Last year 42 percent of all new power producing capacity came from wind, and for the first time the wind industry created more jobs than mining coal. Illinois now has approximately 1,000 megawatts of wind power online, enough to power 300,000 homes.
When the Coal Campaign started challenging plants they were told it was a lost cause. The political climate has changed dramatically.
A press release sent to me by Becki "good at fighting" Clayborn quotes one of the people who helped negotiate the Sierra Club agreement with CWLP.
"I was around for the first coal plants Sierra Club tackled, located here in the Midwest; against all odds and with literally only a handful of us who believed in fighting the plants. Now, only a couple of years later, there are thousands of grassroots volunteers who are helping defeat the construction of polluting coal burning plants. We are seeing a movement," said Verena Owen, volunteer chair of the Beyond Coal Campaign.
Campaign Director Bruce Nilles wrote on his blog:
That movement has kept well over 400 million tons of harmful global warming pollution out of the air, making significant progress in the fight against global warming. Stopping 100 new coal plants has also kept thousands of tons of asthma causing soot and smog pollution, as well as toxins like mercury out of our air and water.
In response to the coal industry weakening the federal energy bill and seeking taxpayer subsidies at all levels of government he declares, "Big Coal deserves no more free rides and loopholes."
I'm proud of the Sierra Club's agreement over the new Dallman 4 coal-fired power plant because it took Springfield in a new direction toward clean energy. But, it wouldn't happen today.
Newer activists can hardly believe that the Club compromised to drop an EPA appeal. If Dallman 4 were proposed today it would be fought to the end like every other coal-fired plant and probably defeated. People who still complain about the Sierra Club playing too tough don't realize how lucky Springfield's timing was.
Here's the video of Bruce Nilles talking about 100 plants down and more to go.